For the third time in as many months, San Bernardino leaders have reversed course on how many commercial cannabis retailers they will allow to seek a permit.
Earlier this month, about six weeks after agreeing to bump the threshold for such businesses to 17, or one for every 12,500 residents, a majority of the City Council opted to allow only 11 storefronts until data showed there was a local market for recreational marijuana.
On Wednesday, Aug. 19, however, most council members supported scrapping that plan and capping permits at 17, as first proposed.
A final decision on the matter could be made in September.
Council members Theodore Sanchez, Sandra Ibarra, Juan Figueroa, Henry Nickel and Bessine Richard favored the latest move.
Councilmen Fred Shorett and Jim Mulvihill dissented.
“There’s going to be damages here from the applicants already approved” to open retail facilities, Shorett said ahead of the vote. “If we look at the way this council operates, we split vote on everything we do. That’s not stability in this community. We’re telling businesses (with this vote) that you can come through here, go through our process, do what we ask you to do and when we decide it’s not working or somebody’s feelings get hurt and they turn around and sue us, we acquiesce and unlevel the playing field.”
City law, as affirmed by voters two years ago, initially allowed no more than 17 commercial cannabis licenses to be awarded to various types of operations, and it gave elected officials the flexibility to increase the number of permits at a later date.
After learning this summer that precious little progress had been made by most of the 16 applicants they allowed to pursue licenses last year, city leaders agreed to stimulate the industry by nearly doubling the cap on legal retail businesses and removing caps on all other types of viable operations.
While they would ultimately pump the brakes on that plan, the council earlier this month still agreed to raise the license limit, from 10 to 11.
“We shouldn’t make any decision without being backed by solid data,” Mulvihill said at the Aug. 5 council meeting. “We say (retail cannabis shops are) not working, but we haven’t allowed (them) to work yet. We limited (permits) to see if they could be successful, and we don’t know that yet.
“We need to have the data,” he added. “We don’t know what demand is.”
In addition to increasing the cap on commercial cannabis retailers, the council this week agreed to introduce a rule prohibiting themselves from being in contact with any business owner navigating the application process.
Adopted by other cities that have welcomed legal cannabis operations to town, Sanchez said such a standard in San Bernardino, which has been plagued by pay-to-play allegations from shunned applicants in recent years, would ensure the city’s permitting system is fair and equitable.
“There is no equity and fairness,” Shorett contended. “We started with equity and fairness in the original process and we’ve mugged it up. This is just ridiculous. We look horrible as a city and as a council.”
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San Bernardino again changes how many marijuana stores it will allow - San Bernardino County Sun
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